To Chase the Sun
by lorwell
Summary: Sandstorm runs for the dog pack. She wants, and she hurts, and she must keep running.


She can smell the death on their breath. The wind behind her carries her fast, and the smell it carries drives her faster.

The pound of paws behind her, heavy ones- Sandstorm holds to the path mere tail-lengths in front of the dogs. She leads them away from camp, away from kits, away from the destruction that Tigerstar has tried to work yet again on the Clan he once claimed to love. She breathes fast and hard, but swallows each one with a shakiness she hates to find in herself.

She's scared.

Her paws hit the ground and she forces down another breath, another truth- Tigerstar needs to die. Sandstorm has always been ready to do what needs doing. She grits her teeth and tries not to think about the tear of fur and flesh.

Her muscles burn as she pushes them harder, ducking around the trees that she's known since she was an apprentice. Tigerstar knows the territory like this too. Better, probably- this was his Clan before it was ever hers. He trained with her father, Redtail, before he killed him. He had trained with Brindleface, too.

Two parents were all she got.

And Tigerstar has taken both of them.

She wants to kill him. She wants to kill him with every rabbit-fast beat of her forest-born heart. She wants this more than anything she can remember wanting, more than she wanted to be made a warrior, more than she wants an apprentice- more than she wants to make it back to camp. She would die for it.

Her thoughts are slowing her down, and she tries to snap herself out of them; she needs to be here, now, if she wants a chance.

There's too much death in the woods these days. She runs to stop it, hopefully, stay it like cobwebs on a wound. The dogs won't catch her- as long as she doesn't look back, she's strong and fast and almost painfully _alive. _

She's almost there; It's almost time for the switch off- she'll be replaced and another will lead the dogs towards the gorge, one leap at a time, and she will be left without anything under her paws but time and worry. Fireheart is the last of them. As the oaks flicker by she sees Fireheart in her mind. He stands at the edge of the path, ears alert and eyes searching for any sign of the menace that bounds behind her. He will get the dogs when they are the slowest, but to lead them over the gorge- Sandstorm's heart leaps to her throat.

She remembers the gorge the way that you remember fire in the dead of leafbare; it is stark, and harsh, and you cannot look away. Whiteclaw- she remembers the name, too, of the first warrior she saw die there: that first warrior she killed. A border tussle slipped deadly on the slick rock face and she watched, glassy eyed, as the swimming warrior tasted his river for the last time. =

Fireheart will not die today; she can feel that in her marrow. StarClan would have told her, would have charged the air with thunder and set the sky reeling, if that were the case. But the rush of fury she feels at the thought sends her legs into doubletime and dogs behind her gulp air in their pursuit.

She has to slow down or she'll lose them. Against her better instincts, she casts a look behind her. The eyes that meet her are flat and furious. They show no hint of mercy or judgement or even awareness of anything outside of the chase; the eyes of the dogs send a shiver down her spine and it is a feat of willpower that she managed to shorter her stride enough to keep them on her tail.

They could kill Fireheart and not think about it ever again. Sandstorm would think of it every day, likely for the rest of her life.

They could kill any one of her clanmates.

Sandstorm finds something that she wants more than the victory of Tigerstar's death; she wants everyone, all that she loves, to see tomorrow. All of this- all that she sacrifices and kills for and dies for- that's the end of it.

Sandstorm nears the turnoff point, meets the waiting warriors's wide, terrified eyes. She shakes her head.

"I've got it!" She calls, and the warrior doesn't ask questions- he turns and disappears into the bracken. That's one that she's protected. But the air tastes cold with exhaustion and the dogs are relentless- so she runs.

For her Clan, she runs. All the elders and apprentices and warriors who would die a hundred times over for their way of life- they deserve someone who runs for them

For the dead, she runs- those who watch over her and those whose grief sits low in her stomach and heavy on her heart. She hopes they run beside her.

And for Fireheart at the end of it all, who remembers that violence and grief are old enemies, not friends- who would hesitate before killing Tigerstar. Who does not look back when he runs. Who she loves. For him, she runs.

It is, in the end, love which drives her paws. Not the knowledge that surviving means a chance to kill, but a chance to love, and love, and love again- to remember the dead and stand by the living, until the dawn comes, tired, soft, and finally kind.


End file.
